Respect is an integral part of most cultures and societies, touching everyone from little children to elderly adults. But who decides who deserves respect? And how does a person show respect? These questions have differing answers in the various cultures, but Islam creates a universal foundation which may unite many cultural ways of life. The respect discussed in this article will focus on parents respecting children, which in turn, will lead to children respecting their parents and others.

 For several decades, Americans have come to know Islam and Muslims through the images and pictures of crisis and conflict covered in the media. Earlier generations formed their opinions of the Muslim world through images of the Arab oil embargo and Palestinian terrorism, or perhaps by Orientalist images of camels and harems. I am part of a generation that came of age in the 1980s, and therefore my earliest memories of international political events were the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the subsequent American hostage crisis in Iran which lasted 444 days, and the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. This was my introduction to the world of Islam. Schools did not teach Geography or World History during my time, movies only served to reinforce my prejudices, and with the exception of a co-worker of my father’s, whom I met on one occasion as a child, I had no other encounter with anyone of the Muslim faith. By the time I entered college, I was predisposed to being suspicious of Muslims and to attributing to them the worst possible intentions.